RIP StockXpert 

I'm not ready to write them off quite yet. As others have noted, there's a lot to like about StockXpert. I'm a vectorist, their reviews of vectors are fast and fair. Some of the problems there seem to have been caused by:
-bad people gaming the search engine
-the transitions of ownership to Jupiter and Getty
I think it is understandable that they are having some problems. I would not want the job of running StockXpert and making it work every day for everyone. Maybe we should have some patience with them?

Congratulations. Welcome on board!

What he said.

I am certainly grateful for his vision and efforts in starting this industry.  It has brought a lot of happiness to my life.

I have often posted negatively about IS, the zeitgeist there rubs me the wrong way I guess.
But I would like to personally thank Bruce Livingston for what he has accomplished. The business model he created has changed the lives of thousands and thousands of people for the better, and I am one of them. What could be a greater accomplishment than to create such a wonderful opportunity for so many people, of every race, religion, and national origin all over the world? So I would like to say thanks, and wish him the best of luck in whatever comes next for him.

that's a pain, cutting and pasting's a real chore when your uploading to multiple sites. I was hoping FT would take the opportunity to get that sorted.

Really, when I saw that FT wanted a JPG thumb I just assumed that now they would read the metadata, and I was happy that it would save me a lot of time. But uploading to them now takes even longer than ever! They want their vectors submitted in a way no other site does. The zipped EPS + thumb are like CC, but you also now have to upload your JPG versions separately, like on SS.

What is FT thinking?  The changes are not an improvement, they make things harder.

My gripe with Vectorstock is that despite saying they have variable pricing based on image complexity, most images on the site are priced at 1 credit ($1). At 25% commission, that's pretty much the lowest pay rate in the business for vectors that deserve a few bucks at the very least.

This is my gripe, too. I have been uploading there for a few weeks and am getting some sales almost every day now. But they make all my vectors 1 credit.

But I will say this for them, they are fair about it, in the sense that they make everybody's vectors 1 credit. One reason I finally started submitting there was that I saw that Kirsty Pargeter was there. She is a great illustrator. But they even make most of her vectors 1 credit. I have seen very few vectors priced at more than 1 credit.

Another thing about the .25 is that Vectorstock does have a tiered paymment schedule. I should be at Bronze soon and so start getting
.30 per dl. The highest level is 'Platinum':
25,000 � 100,00 downloads 25% +20% = 45% ($0.45)
(It's gonna take me a while to get to that.)

Other than the 380x400 thumbnail restriction, their uploading goes pretty fast. A lot faster than say IS. I already have all my eps files zipped anyway because that's what StockXpert requires.

If I wanted to do vectors, didn't have AI, and could get it for $200 I would I do it? Yes, yes I would, immediately!

I don't think the algorithm has changed. I think it is simply that new images are not selling as well as they used to so therefore they don't gain the top-order placement to carry them further.

If that is true (and I think it might well be), then one of the reasons why new images are not selling as well could be the growing use of On Demand buying instead of subscriptions on SS. Subscribers tend to watch the new images, OD buyers search with keywords.

I bet most of people who rant about pirated software use tools from their daytime jobs :-)

I suspect you are right but I hope not. We who make money from selling IP licenses become not only crooks but also hypcrites when we stiff other people who trying to make their livings selling IP licenses. Still I have to admit that getting $3500 3DS Max for free would tempting. How much is airfare to Calcutta?

I hadn't been uploading at CanStockPhoto for a long time, then when I read about their Fotosearch deal I tried to upload some new vectors. At first the process wasn't just slow, it was glacial so I gave up after about 10 files. When I tried again later, the upload page had a different, look but it would not accept eps files at all.

But after reading this I went back and looked and I  have had a spate of $1.00+ sales there in the the last few days! Guess I'll have to keep trying to get some new vectors up.

I've had enough sales on CC to request a payment. It was paid very quickly and accompanied by a nice email from John.

Quote from: michaeldb on January 25, 2009, 20:26

DT automatically raises prices on images based on demand. I like this. But I do not like the idea of making some contributors superior to others in a hierarchy. That is a lot of what is wrong at IS, I think. Let everyone play on a level playing field and each image be judged on its own merits.

Can you name the sites "with a level playing field?" ... and I will start uploading to them.

I won't hold my breath.

-Larry

Well I don't know all the policies of all the sites, and maybe none are perfectly level. But some are more level than others. SS has the tiered .25 to .38 payments based on the contributor's earnings, but otherwise it treats contributors pretty equally, doesn't even have exclusivity. And I think DT and StockXpert are relatively 'level' in the way they treat contributors. But the most unlevel is IS, with its exclusivity bonuses, stinkin badges, best match favoritism, invitations offered to some contributors and not to others, and so on.

I understand that sites have to experiment with all kinds of ideas to try to lure the best contributors, but personally I  like the idea of selling images image by image, whoever they were made by.

I would like to see a site where we could contribute by some kind of anonymity scheme, where no one - even the reviewers - could see which image was by which contributor. And all images were reviewed, priced, and sold equally, purely on their merits. What would be wrong with that?

The copyright is transfered through a contract to an individual. This contract has been specifically designed for this purpose so the original owner has no worry of copyright theft.

Best,
AVAVA

Thanks for the answer! So the individual to whom the copyright is transferred is something like a general partner in a limited partnership? The original copyright owner gives up the copyright but receives contractual guarantees that he/she will receive certain revenue from sale of intellectual property licenses? Forgive me for asking so many questions, but I find this very interesting. Is there a link you could provide to point me at the answers so you don't have to go into detail here?

Parody

Yes, parody and satire are 'fair use'. (I'm not an IP attorney, but if I put on a suit I could pretend to be one in a stock photo.)